Fourth staffer at Sydney aged care home infected with COVID

An outbreak of COVID-19 at a Sydney aged care home continues to grow, with confirmation a fourth staff member has tested positive.

The staff member from SummitCare in Baulkham Hills, whose positive result was revealed on Tuesday night, had been in isolation since July 1 and was classed as a mild case.

The result brings the cluster to 10 cases, including six residents — all of whom SummitCare says are asymptomatic and off-site — and another staffer whose positive result was announced on Tuesday morning.

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The sixth resident to test positive is the wife of another resident, who she has been accompanying since he tested positive on Saturday, SummitCare says.

The couple had both been fully vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine and were transferred to Westmead Hospital on Sunday as a precautionary measure, the company said on Tuesday afternoon. It said woman hadn't tested positive until Tuesday.

The staffer identified as positive on Tuesday morning had since gone into isolation but did work while infectious, SummitCare said in a statement.

They worked in a discrete area of the facility, which had been isolated, the organisation said.

Overnight Monday, testing on residents at the facility has shown no further positive results.

So far six residents at the facility have tested positive and all remain asymptomatic in hospital.

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"We didn't want to be the nursing home that had COVID come in," SummitCare chief operating officer Michelle Sloane said yesterday.

Two-thirds of the staff working at the aged care home at the centre of a new COVID-19 outbreak remain unvaccinated and it is not yet known whether the new case had received the jab.

Ms Sloane said 96 per cent of residents at the home had received a COVID-19 vaccine.

SummitCare said another 24 residents and staff were jabbed on Tuesday at the facility, which remained in full lockdown.

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